Wehkamp

Wehkamp is an online department store with no physical retail locations. The company was founded in 1952 and started as a mail order company. While in the very early years, the company sold mattresses and bed textiles via advertisements in women’s magazines and broadcasting magazines, it has grown into one of the largest ecommerce players in the Netherlands. In 2015, Wehkamp announced that it welcomed more than 145 million visitors annually and handled over seven million shipments during that year.

Innovative

Wehkamp is known as an innovative company. For example, payment in installments was something that was offered soon after the company launched. The retailer was also one of the first players in 1985 to use a voice-response system, with which customers could place their orders 24 hours a day by telephone. And already in 1995, the company’s online store went live. Wehkamp transformed from a catalog company with its own website to a pure online player in 2008. Since 2010, the complete turnover is generated via the online store of Wehkamp.

New warehouse

In order to keep up with the strong growth, Wehkamp has been using a new distribution center since 2015, which was opened by King Willem-Alexander. The warehouse surface of 53,000 square meters has enough space for more than four million items, which can be ready for shipment within half an hour after the order. This made Wehkamp one of the first ecommerce players in the Netherlands that’s able to offer same day delivery to all of its customers.

High return percentage

With services such as fast and, in many cases, free shipping, Wehkamp wants to make it as convenient as possible for its customers. The downside of this is that the company, like many other players who mostly sell fashion items, is struggling with a high return percentage. In June 2016, during the Logistics & E-commerce event, Wehkamp announced that it delivers about 200,000 articles every day, of which some 60,000 are returned within the return period. This means almost one in three items sent by Wehkamp will be returned.

Wehkamp Belgium

At the end of 2014, Wehkamp opened the doors of its Belgian online department store. The ambition was to turn it into a top-3 player in the Belgian online market within three years. At the beginning of 2017 however, the company closed its Belgian site. The official notice was that the website needed some major maintenance. The Belgian Wehkamp website never returned…